In Between Similarities
by neverland300690
Summary: What if, just like Naruto, Jiraya too had someone in his life a long time ago, someone that loved him while he was oblivious about it, someone who he could never love back, not really, for reasons that later in his life he came to find foolish.


_AN: this is just a little piece of monolougue that i came up with as i though about the similarities between Naruto and Jiraya - i thought maybe Jiraya too had someone like Hinata who loved him but who he never quite loved back because he was always too taken by Tsunade._

o

**In between similarities **

"_There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth."  
__Charles Dickens, Great Expectations _

_o_

You watch your apprentice talk with his friends, watch him get smacked around by the pink-haired tornado that Tsunade has been honing - and you can't help but wonder if the Princess knows that she has practically copied herself in this cherry blossom. You look over at Naruto and wonder the same thing about yourself this time.

Naruto is one of the simplest people you've ever met – and yet there seems to be no end to the layers and twists of thought he is capable of, in his own simple whole-hearted way. There is so much in him that reminds you both of his father and his mother - in a way it's almost like having both of them back.

… and then there are the things that remind you of yourself. Pungent little things that cannot be overlooked.

As the way he interacts with his pink-haired team-mate for instance.

You and Tsunade always fought in that same way and if only your heart was a little less calloused, it would be all too easy to shudder at the sight of what' you're seeing now. It's not that hard to draw analogies between the missing Uchiha and Orochimaru either – both blinded by their own obsessions. And as you think that you wonder, for the thousandth time: is this destiny's way of making fun of your tragedies, of the pain you've gone through as every loss forged you into who you are now? Is this just a cruel twist of the blade in the wound?

Or is this – are _they_ - a chance to make some wrongs right?

But those are questions for one that is not quite as much of a realist as you. Because that's what you've turned into: someone that sees the world for what it is. You're too old now to live any other way. Days of dreams are over. And you can't afford to have reserves, especially where the blonde kid is concerned. You were after all, thirteen years too late when it came to taking him and in and watching out for him. And no matter that you spent most of your adult life trailing after Akatsuki and their plans for this same boy, protecting him from a distance as best as you could; no matter that had the other four shinobi villages ever learned the Yellow Flash had a child, assassins would have come for Naruto every other day and probably he would have never seen his fifth birthday... still, a part of you still wonders if Minato will every forgive you for the way you abandoned his son after he died.

But you're here now. You're doing what you were supposed to and now you are closer to the boy, because he needed the protection but most of all, he needs the guidance.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll be there for him enough to make right a few more wrongs in your life before the time comes. After all, it's not a rule written in stone that for shinobi there can be no second chances…

All in all, it doesn't matter. You don't dwell on those kind of thoughts longer than you have to anymore. You leave the great hopes and big dreams to Naruto. The kid has a knack for making them come true after all, more so than you ever did.

But in your heart you know that the romantic in you will die a slow and painful death. Bits and pieces of him still are around and rear their ugly head sometimes. 'Gooey inside' Tsunade used to say, a long time ago. Which was why you sometimes wondered about things you had no business wondering about.

But then again, as a master spy, that was you job…

And speaking of your job – there are quite a few things that the Hokage needs to know about, so you turn on your heel and start making your way to the tower… or at least you're headed there, when you notice the little disturbance at the corner.

She is silent as a mouse and maybe just as jittery. Pretty little thing, all bundled up, not wanting anyone to notice that she a girl trapped in a body she has no idea how to begin being comfortable in. You can't help that little smirk. Girls just out of puberty are just too damn cute.

And… would you look at _that_ - pearls in her eyes. Hyuuga this one. A rare specimen, at that: timid and shy, with a sweet smile and kind eyes. Well good for her, you think. And if she is the heir of her clan, as you suspect she is, than good for everyone else too. The Hyuuga had been in dire need of some kindness in their midst…

But a little more interesting is the surprise you find once you follow the direction of her looks.

No, not a surprise. It's fair to say you are stunned.

And now you can't hold it back, you chuckle because it's too much. You look at that girl – beautiful as a picture, all milk and midnight… and then you look at the goofiness personified that your apprentice is most of the time. Naruto, the little idiot who has no idea how to go about wooing a woman even if she came with a manual tattooed on her tits, and _he_ has this sweet thing looking at him as if he's god's gift to woman kind!

The irony is somewhat pungent: the impossibility of the heir of Konoha's most prominent (and pompous) clan falling for the pariah of the same village is outstanding. But then again Naruto has a very natural way of defying the impossible, even when he is utterly oblivious that he is doing it. But let's not give the boy too much credit. After all, half of the equation is the pretty girl that likes to spy on him: it takes a certain amount of character and observation to see past all the front Naruto puts and find what he hides behind it. But see it she does, apparently.

It's a small wonder really, that the blonde knucklehead manages to remain in the dark: even a blind man could see how taken she is with him.

But then again, you think sadly, nobody ever showed Naruto how it could be, to have someone look at you with affection in their heart just because you were there, breathing the same air. He always had to strive - tooth and nail, blood and tears - to be seen and acknowledged even from those that sometimes were far beneath him. So maybe the blonde could be excused of his blindness this once…

Or at least you'd be more inclined to do so, if the Hyuuga sweetheart wasn't such a delicious little treat. And isn't she the cutest as she spies on him laughing with his friends, that smile softening her entire face, eyes full of some emotion would pluck the strings even of stone hearts.

And that's when you pause, a little thrown.

She _really_ likes him, you realize and your mood turn serious. Judging by the speed her heart is going, that quiet hope and adoration in her eyes, she likes him _a lot_ more than she maybe should.

And it's with that thought that you realize the shift in yourself: you're looking at the Hyuuga, but you stopped thinking about her some moments ago. Possibly when you realized just how much she liked the irredeemably oblivious Naruto Uzumaki.

You're thinking about someone else… as usually you're thinking about yourself. Because if you were thinking about Naruto, you would be glad that someone close to him loves him enough to look at him with such soft eyes. You'd be glad for him - and maybe go over there and give him a good shake. You would do that, if you didn't know by now that when it comes to these things, shaking doesn't work. Oh, you know _that_ all too well.

You just hope Naruto isn't as stupid as you were when you were young and that he, unlike you, will not let this pass him by.

But that is not an issue, you say to yourself. You have a lot in common with the loud blonde, perhaps a lot more than you are comfortable with, but on one thing you are not at all alike and that is a relief: Naruto has a habit of holding on for dear life to the people that he loves and that love him even just a little bit. He doesn't let go, even when they push him away, even when they want nothing to do with him. He knows exactly how precious affection is and never underestimates it.

Thank god, in that, he is much smarter than you once were.

And now that you've opened the door to that thought, you can't help but remember… and once you do, it's an onslaught of old dusty memories that comes at you all at once. It feels like a lifetime ago (and at the same time, it was also just yesterday) when a girl with long dark hair and a sweet smile looked at you and saw something worthy, just because you were yourself. A girl who usually kept her silence, and that could give more warmth and love in one look than most people ever receive in their whole lives.

The tug that her memory creates in you is almost overwhelming. A bittersweet feeling whose power never really dims. It's been years, _decades _really, and you still feel it, when the memory of her gets too close. And nothing can bring it closer than being slapped with the look in the eyes of a young girl in love. In love with an idiot, might you just add, that is too blind by his life to notice it.

The extension of that truth hits you fully and it's as if you hadn't fully realized it before, as if it was too large a thing and standing too close and you couldn't see it completely.

But now you do and it hits too close to home, which is probably why your mood sours so fast. And there's no helping your memories at this point, nor the way that they flood your consciousness.

Which is why, as you jump from roof to roof, you let yourself remember the way _she_ used to smile - a little crookedly as if she knew some secret, that glint in her eyes always adding mischief to her amusement. You remember her ever so faintly prominent canines that chirped at the perfection of her smile, making it interesting… and at times feral. You remember eyes of vivid green, a cut bisecting her left eyebrow – the memory of an injury that had almost blinded her as a Genin. She used to move about with such grace that one could easily mistake her for a dancer, but the way she always kept one hand free - even on an unconscious level always ready to grab a weapon - gave her away immediately: she was a gifted killer in the body of a exceptionally beautiful, elegant girl. You remember how cleaning her weapons over a cup of tea was her idea of relaxation and how after practice she sometimes smelled of cinder or burnt hair… hair that flowed like silk between your fingers and how she used to touch you with open palms and kiss like it was always both the first and last time. How she had a thing for biting and tasted like nothing you've ever tasted since and slept in the strangest poses, stealing all the covers and liked it best when you held her close, how she relaxed completely, and breathed slowly, taking you in with every heartbeat.

Little things, the idiosyncrasies.

A whole ocean of them, if you just thought about it.

And then there are the things you can never forget: her dragging herself out of the overturned earth, flesh torn and charred, blood wetting the earth… the look of pain on her face, the groans trapped behind her tightly clenched teeth and how she'd screamed in agony when they tried to heal her and failed.

You dreamed about it for months afterwards. The image of her so destroyed had haunted you the way atrocities from the wars you've seen never did. Even now you sometimes wake in cold sweat when your unconsciousness digs up your worst memories to torture you.

And then you have to make yourself remember that she'd faced her death with the same unflinching sense of humor she faced all else.

'…_Nothing like landing on an explosive tag to ruin your make up'_, she'd said with a smile that had been there just to mask the grimace.

Funny, you didn't even remember you remembered that...

Funny.

She had been funny - a rather dark sense of humor that flared with the irony of the shrewd-minded. She'd been beautiful too… so very beautiful. But not in the way of the Huyyga you saw before: her eyes had been somewhat sharper: her lids heavier, her mouth fuller and eyebrows harsher. But her features were not what made her so compelling: she had something beyond looks, something captivating and not easily defined, something undeniably sensual that stemmed from her passionate nature and reflected in the intensity of her eyes.

She was stubborn too. So fucking stubborn and relentless that she broke into a high security prison once, just to get you out. To this day you have no idea how she managed to find you, but you do remember the sight of the mountain exploding so violently that it looked as if it was a volcano erupting - the Kumo operational base built at the side of it was blown to high hell.

She was only sixteen when that happened.

They started to really fear her after that, started giving her names that made her opponents think twice before even thinking about engaging her in battle… because she had been strong too. Strong enough to literally level small mountains. Strong enough, and smart enough and charismatic enough that she had even the most hardened traditionalists considering a female Hokage one day.

She and Tsunade – _'Kohona's Jewels'_, people used to say.

You ask yourself if she would ever had accepted it, the honor and burden of being Konoha's Fire Shadow… The questions hangs uncomfortably. You'll never know the answer, because she died before she could know herself. She died much too soon, the way all the very best die, and sometimes you wonder, was it worth it? Was your life worth the sacrifice of hers?

The answer to that is easy: yes.

Yes, because she believed so; believed it strongly enough to die for it and you don't have the permission to regret neither her choice nor your life, because that would be the same as to drag her sacrifice through mud and you can't do that. you don't think like that anymore. You're mature enough now to accept her choice and respect it… and not resent it anymore.

It took a long time, but her memory holds no more booby traps for your conscience. Finally, you learned how to live with live left behind. It took you two decades, but you did it. The melancholy you feel now is something bittersweet. She - and everything that she represented, everything that your world was when she loved you, such a long time ago - is dead. She is at peace and - where she is concerned - so are you. At least most of the time.

You are not a twenty year old youth anymore and there's nothing particularly wrong with that. It's as thins are meant to be.

But sometimes, just _sometimes_, when something makes you long for eyes you haven't seen since almost thirty years ago, you wish that you had known back then what you know now. You wish you could have seen how important it was, how rare and precious... But you didn't, and while she was loving you, you were loving someone else and your team was falling apart and the world was at war... everything was upside down and you didn't know enough to realize how much love meant amidst the chaos.

And still, she'd loved you.

There is consolation in that... if you are serene and balanced enough to see past the regret of your mistakes.

She _loved_ you. Every detail about you, every small perfection, every imperfection, everything about you that everyone else missed or ignored or found irritating. Everything, even those things she didn't even like about you. She is the only one that ever loved you that way, and that's something you cherish... and miss more than anything, because you know you'll never have that feeling back: that absolute fullness, the sheer _rightness_ that you felt in your own skin when you felt so loved.

It amazes you how little you knew then, how carelessly you hurt her, without even realizing.

_'I don't know any other way of loving_…' she'd once told you. She'd asked you if you did, and you hadn't known what to say to her. Now you had an answer: there were many ways to love, as many people there were on the face of the world. You know that because you've found it out through experimentation: you've searched for that feeling she once made you feel, searched for it everywhere - unconsciously searching for her likeness, perhaps, in every woman after her that gave you a moment.

And you know that most of all you're looking for something in yourself as well: someone that will make you feel centered again: focused and sure. Someone that will stir in you the unshakable belief in life, and hope and tomorrow that you'd realized you felt only once you lost it. Someone that would make you feel the way _she_ must had felt when she took the fall in your stead – not out of duty, or honor or anything that had to do with her training as a shinobi, though she never lacked any of those virtues.

No, she did what she did only out of love. Love for you and the rest of her team. Love that was pure and hopeful and immortal: love for friends and comrades… and for an almost lover as well.

You were capable of the same sacrifice once. But then she died and so many others as well, and nobody ever looked at you the way _she_ used to look at you anymore. You were left alone and nothing seemed worth dying over. The world had lost its magic… and now you realize that you spent the rest of your life trying to find it again, thinking all the time it was impossible and already lost…

Until you met a loud and irritating brat that wouldn't leave you alone, and enough determination in his eyes to match even your cynicism, spouting idiocies about being Hokage and whatnot – and it was in Naruto's eyes that you found the spark you thought was gone from the world, much to your surprise and innermost relief.

And it's just as well that you and Naruto are so different where it most matters. And as you realize that you also realize that you will fight and die to protect that difference, that precious something that makes Naruto so remarkable, so very much unique. That kid has something to teach even to old farts like you and you find yourself very much willing to learn, almost eager in fact (thought trying so hard not to show it, because you're too old now to be so transparent), because you are among the first to realize: what better example to learn from about love, than the one loud idiot that has enough to spare for the whole world.

Just one look at him is enough to let you know that he is the promise you've been searching for this whole time: the inspiration for a kind of love you never thought you'd ever feel again – something pure, and whole, and eternal, just the way you hoped it would feel.

Something to believe in – or rather someone.

Funny really, that the most precious treasures are found in the strangest, most unexpected places. But then you remember one of the most important lessons you've ever been taught, because it was taught in blood of the one that once loved you most – and which is to look closely and never underestimate your ability to surprise yourself.

This same lesson is the one you find yourself believing in, despite all that life has taught you, even as you see echoes of lost hearts in the smiles of people right in front of you… but that's ok, because Naruto knows better and his mistakes will never be anything like the ones you made. You doubt that he will ever be anything like you in that regard, because between all the similarities you share, there are the most remarkable differences, which make Naruto himself, and a much better man than you ever were – and that… _that_ is what you most cherish about him.


End file.
